How to care For Your Bird

CAGE MAINTENANCE                                                                            

Clean droppings and dried or discarded food out of your bird’s cage daily.

Deep clean monthly with a cage cleaner and ongoing with an odorless cleaning solution. Remove your bird and all his toys, bowls and other removable parts of the cage.

GROOMING

Before you start doing any grooming on your own ask your veterinarian to teach you the safest and most comfortable way to groom. Once you're accustomed to the grooming process you may want to purchase small scissors, bird nail scissors, a grinding file, bird misters or spray bottle, and a styptic powder.

PLAY & HIDE

While all birds love their play and interaction time, all species have different preferences. You can begin interacting with any species of bird just by feeding and cleaning his cage, all of which offer the perfect opportunity to talk, whistle or hum to your bird as an added interaction. Inside the cage your bird will love foraging and task completion activities with interactive toys or even household items with fun shapes and textures, such as uncooked pasta.

Some birds will be more vocal than others – doves like cooing, canaries like talking and whistling, conures like talking – and other species love music, including conures who will bob their head. If you’re interested in training your bird to do tricks or talk, consult your breed-specific books and resources to find out what type of language capabilities your breed has and to research the best training methods. Birds are very reward-oriented and will need to be enticed with treats. Some books even recommend clicker training.

WHILE YOU’RE AWAY

Because birds are such social animals they need plenty of stimulation while you’re away. The best way to make sure your bird is happy when he's alone is to think of the five senses:

• Sight: Give him something interesting to watch, including a TV or feeder
• Sound: Leave talk radio or music playing from a stereo
• Smell: Give your bird citrus or mint to chew on for some soothing scents
• Taste: Feed varied food or leave special morsels in a treat dispenser, or hang leaves or fruit on a skewer
• Touch: Trade out sets of toys each week and give him perches with different textures